White House Historical Association

Mary A. Muller

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"Mary A. Muller," White House Workers History Project, White House Historical Association, 2026, https://whha.whirlihost.com/Detail/workers/422.
Position
Housekeeper
Years in President's House
1869 – circa 1877
Legal Status
Free Person
Gender
Female
Race/Ethnicity
White
Presidency
Ulysses S. Grant
Biography
Mary A. Muller was born around 1820 in Virginia.1 Muller worked for Ulysses and Julia Grant prior to their time in the White House at their Washington, D.C. home at 205 I Street NW. Julia Grant’s memoir suggests that Muller tended to the Grant children, Nellie and Jesse, at that time.2 Julia Grant then brought Muller with her to the White House, where she lived and worked as their housekeeper. Mrs. Grant called her “a most faithful and excellent woman.”3 Of her work, longtime White House Disbursing Officer William H. Crook wrote that while the steward “purchased all the table supplies…[Muller’s] duties included practically everything else connected with the housekeeping end of the Executive Mansion: oversight of the servants, the care of the various rooms and the furniture, and the thousand and one details that must be looked after in such a large establishment.” Crook went on to call her “thoroughly capable and businesslike.”4 According to historian William Seale, Muller lived at the “east end of the basement” in a comfortable room “equipped with gaslight and a lavatory”; it was decorated with furnishings and decor left by previous first families.5 Mary Muller likely stayed through the entirety of the Grant administration, but further information about her life is limited. However, in 1889, longtime White House worker Jerry Smith told the media that he believed Mrs. Muller haunted the White House.6
  1. Mary Mullen in the 1870 United States Federal Census, Year: 1870; Census Place: Washington Ward 1, Washington, District of Columbia; Roll: M593_123; Page: 210B, Ancestry.com.
  2. Julia Dent Grant, The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant Ed. John Y. Simon (New York: G. P. Putnam’s and Sons, 1975), 160-161; “Notes on the Scott-Grant House,” Glover Park History, https://gloverparkhistory.com/appendix/the-scott-grant-house/; Virginia F. Townsend, “The Cottage at Long Branch,” Arthur’s Home Magazine Vol. 41 (1873) pg. 121.
  3. Grant, The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant, pg. 174.
  4. “The Personal Life of Grant: Personal Recollections of Colonel W. H. Crook,” The Saturday Evening Post, August 20, 1910, pg. 8, https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Saturday_Evening_Post/r2EwAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=president+grant+housekeeper&pg=RA8-PA8&printsec=frontcover.
  5. William Seale, The President’s House Vol. 1 (White House Historical Association, 1986), 442.
  6. “White House Ghosts,” The Inter Ocean (Chicago, Il), September 27, 1889, pg. 2.
Birthplace
Virginia, USA
Unclear from Context
Related Workers
William H. Crook
Ushers, Stewards, and Doorkeepers, 1865 – 1915
Jeremiah Smith
Valets, Lady's Maids, and First Family Attendants, Housekeeping and Laundry, circa 1873 – 1903